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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHO IS MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES IN SUPPLYING ARMS TO THE UKRIAN?

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( Fifteen minute read)

The human being is apparently the most aggressive and cruel species that has ever inhabited the Earth: There is no other animal that kills members of its own species in such a systematic way as man does (Sangrador, 1982).

So it is not surprising that the current Ukraine war raises difficult political and ethical questions, because these day with technology we fail to see systematic polarisation, because we all assume good and bad are equally distributed among us, but that is just an abstract idea, far from the reality.

If western leaders think that their arms-length encouragement of Ukraine will bring about a Ukrainian military victory, then they are fatally misreading Putin’s intentions and resolve.

Russia’s progress may be slowed, but it’s highly unlikely to be stopped, far less pushed out of Ukraine, and in the meantime the grinding destruction and hideous war crimes continue.

The west’s current approach of supporting Ukraine’s war aim of defeating the aggressor, and providing arms for that purpose while pointedly avoiding direct military intervention, is guaranteed to prolong the war and it is not at all clear that the kind of support we are giving (and not giving) is the right way to go about preserving the Ukrainian nation.

One thing is certain it is that Putin will never accept defeat.

He is already too deeply invested in this war to back off with nothing to show for it.

If Russia’s aim was to exterminate the Ukrainian nation, then the west’s approach is helping to do just that. Encouraging the Ukrainians to continue, however just their cause, is merely making their country uninhabitable.

Of course as with any war the problem is how what and where should support be given but in the background of any war there are those supplying ammunition and arms to both the aggressor and the opposition.

Large defence companies are already seeing their share prices go up as investors anticipate the impact of the war on profits.

Thales shares have risen by 35% since the invasion, while BAE Systems shares are up 32%. Lockheed Martin has seen an increase of 14% and Aero Vironment 63%.

Supplying weapons offers no effective means of reducing violence.

————————————

In wars there is a profound failure to mourn loose of life, because there is nothing good enough to allow the process to begin, leads to an enactment where loss is transferred usually bodily into another.

We accept that no one has the right to take another’s life, however, justified their grievances.

It is true that some people can feel that their own identity, country, belief system, are so under threat that the annihilation of the other, to preserve their own belief systems, is sometimes justified. The aggressive attacker has forfeited their rights and therefore it’s okay to attack them, to kill them, or to hurt them.

In the case of wars people are violent because it feels like the right thing to do.

It follows that supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do, with Britain and Poland now suppling Tanks.

So where are we with the War?

I think when we look at the state of the world we have two conflicting regimes at war with each other: We tend to think that the seed of violence is outside of us and we are exempt from it but ” violence begets violence ” laying the seed for future clashes.

Religious fundamentalism in the form of a particularly virulent form of Islam, which most Muslims do not of course adhere to.

The other is an unfettered fundamentalism, a form of Neo-liberal secular market economics, that promulgates a vicious form of Social Darwinism. “We are all revolutionary in our shopping habits now,” that most of us don’t want to adhere to this idea – but unwittingly play a part in it – and until we realise the damage to climate change and the plight of refugees.

We are actually in a period of profound economic crisis where the human industrial system could threaten to destroy all traces of tradition, certainty and belief.

It is possible that no other currency of communication can be imagined other than death to the enemy. Hence, the dynamic can be perpetuated down the generations. The desire for vengeance and the righting of wrongs can shape an entire life.

Instead of listening to the grievances arising from the Middle East, we in the West continue to employ professional soldiers to perform what might seem acts of state-sanctioned terrorism in the name of foreign policy such as the invasion of Iraq, still a highly peculiar response to the 9/11 attacks.

Can there ever be just wars?

The answer to that question (in a democratic society) is almost always going to be “no” because the test of “Is it a last resort” which is one of the tests for a just war, is never going to be reached, because there is always in a democratic society, an alternative way of reaching your goal, which is to pursue things through the normal political process.

Is this true?

Some violence is more rational or ethically justifiable than others, such as surgical strikes, or limited warfare, the use of things like drones has become very common. The remote drone operator carrying out clean surgical hits allegedly in our name. The pleasure of an Isis general being blown to pieces.

But the question remains. Can there ever be a just war?

How many of us for instance would think it was worthwhile for anyone’s sons or daughters to die in the service of keeping the Falklands Islands British, or during the invasion of Iraq, whether this action is seen as an atrocity or ‘liberation’.

Nelson Mandela was deemed a terrorist, not a rebel with great cause, he remained on the US terrorism list most of his life. Reagan and Thatcher both viewed Mandela as a threat. Indeed, he was at first involved in necessary violent guerrilla actions against the apartheid state.

You can’t defeat an ideology, when it feels based on a justified grievance that belief systems are under threat from the modern world and a wish to regress from the advances of modernity, which seems to lack all spiritual awareness except that of materialism.

——————————————-

Can violence be fought with violence?   Of course it can.

The paradox of fighting violence with violence is within psychology two opposing concepts, one called “compassion fatigue” and the opposite “substitution trauma.” Both associated with chronic stress and its effect on ceasing to feel empathy for others or feeling sympathetic to others..

Currently, because we are shown violent images daily on Television stations and social media it make’s us reflect on the consequences suffered by victims of aggression as well as the different types of aggression that are shown, making many of these scenes appear as “happy violence.”

However, luckily it is still very rare that you’ll see anybody claim that hurting someone else is an inherently moral thing to do.

Unfortunately morality as understood and practiced by real-world human beings, doesn’t always prohibit violence. In fact they make the case that most violence is motivated by morality.

An emotional abduction (Goleman, 2012) can trigger our violence: a lack of self-control, an unexpected event, the protection of a loved one, defence against an out-of-control animal, or even an attack of zeal, can trigger our most heinous thoughts.

Social interaction influences the brain and the brain influences social interaction.

Social behaviour is learned mainly by observing and imitating the actions of others, and secondly, by being directly rewarded and punished for our own actions. In this regard Putin points to the extermination of the native Indians in West (The Establishment Americas, war list is endless ) as defence of his actions.

The best way to change someone’s behaviour is to understand what motivated that behaviour in the first place.

Political leaders are right to condemn terrorist attacks – we do not have to accept the moral codes of others in order to acknowledge that they exist. However, long-term solutions to terrorist atrocities, as well as many other forms of violence such as wars in our society, might benefit from a taking a perspective that the perpetrators believe that what they are doing is good, just, and right.

Russia’s age-old security concerns, perhaps even the very logic of basing today’s international frontiers in that part of Europe on what were internal borders in the USSR, drawn up by communist leaders precisely to prevent Soviet republics and regions from being viable independent states.

“People are only as mad as the other people are deaf” – Adam Philips.

The greatest acts of violence in the last century have in fact been perpetrated by western colonialism and economic expansionism, we are now arguably reaping the backlash of those policies. The exploitation of the poor by the neoliberal economy is one huge factor in social and state violence, which leads to wars and militarism.

So to create a violent attack firstly ignore the underlying factors, poverty inequality and western exploitation, the severe effects of climate change, global warming, arguably caused by unscrupulous western economic policies.

No day goes past without some senior western politician proclaiming that Ukraine will be “successful” and that Russia is “failing” which is clearly nonsense. The risk involved in this – of a third world war – is obvious, and it’s why the west refuses to intervene directly.

Can violence be fought with violence?

Like all wars, Russia’s barbaric attack on Ukraine will finish at some point. How it ends will determine whether Europe is destined to live with a festering sore of bitterness and division at its heart.

How will the war end?

First, there is outright victory by one side or the other. Second, there is a negotiated ceasefire leading to a peace settlement of some kind. Third, an inconclusive outcome, with the fighting gradually subsiding leaving a stalemate or frozen conflict.

The most pressing question is how do we prevent a repeat of the most violent conflict that humanity has ever seen, the second world war.

Remember that world war two didn’t come out of nothing its starting fuse was the peace agreement of world war one.

Outright victory with unconditional surrender by the losing side is rare and military victory frequently led to a much more ambiguous political outcome sowing the seeds of future conflict.

The third way conflicts end is in a stalemate, with no clear winner and no peace agreement, but a gradual ebbing away of the fighting, leaving a more or less chaotic and unstable situation.

None of these analogies will apply precisely.

How will Putin’s latest Ukraine war end?

Outright victory by one side looks the least likely. Even if Russia managed to topple the Zelensky government and install a puppet regime, subjugating the whole country would require a massive army of occupation, far larger than Moscow can muster.

Moscow and Kyiv have set out their opening positions. But these are light-years apart.

Any amputation of Ukraine’s territory will result in a hostile stand-off, with regular upsurges of fighting along a line of separation. Another words back to a full-scale Cold War with Russia.

If NATO were to actively enter the war and make a quick, massive and decisive strike to cripple Russia’s invasion forces it would be the demise of the EU catapulting it back to a situation of the 1930s where there were individual states in Europe pitted against each other.

In the end there will be no classless society or reign of the Just. It will just carry on in the same kind of way. Meanwhile, all we have is the means. The means is how we will be judged.

As some put it: Peace only be achieved without weapons.

We create refugees with our economics and then blame them for wanting a better life.

Tell them (they have names)

and when they turn the bodies over

To count the number of closed eyes. And they tell you 800’000: you say no. that was my uncle. He wore bright coloured shirts and pointy shoes.

2 million: you say no. that was my aunty.

her laughter could sweep you up like

The wind to leaves on the ground.

6 million: you say no. that was my mother.

her arms. the only place I have ever

Not known fear.

3 million: you say no. that was my love.

We used to dance. Oh, how we used to dance.

Or 147: you say no. that was our hope. Our future. The brains of the family.

And when they tell you that you come from war: you say no. I come from hands held in prayer before we eat together.

When they tell you that you come from conflict: you say no. I come from sweat. On skin. glistening. From shining sun.

When they tell you that you come from genocide: you say no. I come from the first smile of a new born child. tiny hands.

When they tell you that you come from rape: you say no. and you tell them about every time you have ever loved.

Tell them that you are from mother carrying you on her back. until you could walk. until you could run. until you could fly.

Tell them that you are from father holding you up to the night sky. full of stars. and saying look, child.

this is what you are made of. From long summers. full moons. flowing rivers. sand dunes.

you tell them that you are an ocean that no cup could ever hold.

JJ Bola | poet

————————————–

In a world where there are disadvantages, neglect and unfairness, there will always be collective and individual activity to reverse the inferior position, by finding other bodies and minds to carry it.

The thing is, no one would ever engage in something that serves the purpose of one’s species’ survival unless one found some pleasure in it.

But does this concept imply while making the revolution enjoying the violence in the process is okay?

Is there really such a convenient separation between a revolution (or rebellion or civil war) and everyday life violence?

If so, one has to use a different register for judgement.

People could receive reinforcement or rewards for their aggressive behaviour in different ways: directly or indirectly.

Every act of violence can feel justified with the currency of communication is the exchange of pain.

It is clear that such questions can and must be discussed.

You can’t defeat an ideology, when it feels based on a justified grievance that belief systems are under threat from the modern world and a wish to regress from the advances of modernity, which seems to lack all spiritual awareness except that of materialism.

When the state is violent, is violence justifiable?

What happens when we tolerate the intolerant? And when we spare the life of a killer? Do we become their enablers?

Is assassination a more justifiable form of political violence than war?

The ethics of selective assassination as a tactic in warfare has not really been given much of consideration until the invention of drones, and with their appears, the acceptance, increasingly that you can execute people before you have tried them.

Freedom is a form of human flourishing that we can only develop or aspire to acquire in relationships with other people.

Violence is destructive of the great fabric of human association that I need in order to develop as a free person.

For example, the Taliban was supposed to be crushed by the invasion of Afghanistan; a very similar kind of organisation to ISIS or ISIL. In the end, as John Alderdice has said, they have to be talked to.

To the Russian President: Vladimir Putin.

Your time will end.

Please end your invasion of the Ukraine . It’s not working. Whatever your reason was for the invasion is no longer valid. You are only hurting your own people. The scansions are incredible and direct and hurtful for your people. It’s not working and it’s not worth destroying both the Ukraine and Russia. However, if you insist on being closed minded an ignorant the please go about it. You will only end up destroying yourself. What you are doing is crazy and stupid.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S; WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RUSSIA?

07 Wednesday Sep 2022

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What do we really know about the Russian.

The history of the name of Russia is just as convoluted as the history of Russia itself:

It like all countries involves conquest, power struggles, dissolution, and reunification, all are integral part of the way we perceive the world that we rarely ponder their origins.

Modern Russia derives its name from the Kevian Rus’, the ancestors of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

The name Rus’ comes from an Old Norse word for ‘the men who row.’‘ and the men who rowed’ were Vikings who arrived from the territory of modern-day Sweden and became dominant in the region for at least a few centuries.

The Vikings rowed from Sweden to the now-Russian territories and down the rivers all the way to Ukraine. The earliest sources mentioning the Rus’ come from the beginning and middle of the ninth century from Byzantium, Persia, and France.

The Soviet Union Collapses On December 25, 1991 replaced by 15 independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Russia’s name truly is a mirror in which Russia itself is reflected with a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other has been very noticeable during the past quarter of a century.

We must remember that before 1914 Russia was predominantly a backward agricultural country.  Until modern times Russia’s geographic “remoteness” from the rest of the world and her inaccessibility except by land or air routes have had afar-reaching influence on her history.

If one thinks about Russia today it conjures up many names associated with its existence.

In no particular or historical order here are a few.

Peter the Great, Karl Marx, Josef Stalin, Lenin, Bolshevik Revolution,  Khrushchev, Leon Trotsky, Moscow Red Square, St Petersburg, Yuri Gagarin, Vodka, KGB, Trans-Siberian Railway. Stalingrad,  Volga River,  Doctor Zhivago, Mikhail Gorbachev,  Boris Yeltsin, Roman Abramovich, Oligarchs, Alexey Navalny, Communism. Chernobyl, Putin.

In fact what we are talking about is a enormous country with a surface area of 17.13 million square kilometres, with 643 billion trees –holding around 20% of the world’s freshwater, providing  27% of the EU’s crude oil imports, 41% of its natural gas, and 47% of its solid fuel (such as coal) with a population of 146,069,910, speaking at least 270 languages and dialects, a nuclear superpower, separated from the USA by just 4km of water. 

No country is entirely self-sufficient but it possesses some of the richest natural resources of any country in the world.

Indeed, as the world’s third-largest oil producer Russia has yet to make renewable energy an absolute priority.

For Russia’s domestic audience there is no doubt about the “greatness” of the country, which makes it an indispensable player in international politics and deserves recognition by other major powers.

This means that Moscow is driven primarily by security concerns; viewed from such a perspective, the actions against Georgia and Ukraine could be aimed at preventing NATO expansion.

The annexation of Crimea in 2013 and now its involvement into conflict with Ukraine have led to the country being perceived as a revisionist power and breaker of international norms.

——————–

Russia’s communist system is a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. A political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.

Although the term communism did not come into use until the 1840s—it is derived from the Latin communis, meaning “shared” or “common”— You might not believe it but for much of the 20th century, in fact, about one-third of the world’s population lived under communist regimes.

It was neither a religious upheaval nor a civil war but a technological and economic revolution—the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries—that provided the impetus and inspiration for modern communism.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

To understand Russia’s foreign policy we must bear in mind that, by and large, the Stalin regime has acted in world affairs not on the basis of Marxist doctrine, but on the basis of Russia’s national interests.

Stalin’s principal objectives have been to make Russia independent of the rest of the world in a military and economic sense and to protect the security of the Soviet Union against external attack during the period of “building socialism in one country.”

What is really puzzling about Russian foreign policy (and very much deserves further exploration) now is the positioning of Russia in various scales: regional, macro-regional (Eurasian), and global, and their compatibility and (in) consistency, as well as (and at the same time) Russian positioning with regards to its main neighbours, China and the European Union.

“The question we ought to be asking ourselves is why did NATO even exist after 1990?

If NATO was to stop Communism, why is it now expanding to Russia?”

It is important to note that not everyone in the world subscribes to the western ideas of democracy, or even to democracy itself. Not being a democracy is nothing illegal — it may sound regressive in today’s world but it is not illegal.

To try to intimidate and arm-twist a nuclear superpower in the name of democracy unfortunately now has terrible consequences for the Ukrainians and will never work.Global view of Russia and former Soviet satellite countries labeled.

Whether the war in Ukraine lasts weeks, months, or years, depends on individual actions that run the gamut from those of world leaders, to ordinary citizens and soldiers. Soldiers are most likely to disobey orders when they recognize that a war will not achieve its objectives, or that they are fighting for their leaders’ survival and against their own interests.

In order to end a war, a leader’s chances of political and physical survival must be taken into calculation.

An outright defeat of Russia in Ukraine may actually translate into a death sentence for Russian President Vladimir Putin. One would expect Russia therefore to lower its demands but we’ve seen very little evidence of that so far—only the demand of denazification seems to have been dropped.

In a regime like Russia—which is clearly not a democracy, but also not quite a dictatorship—if you win a war, you’re the great hero; if you lose a war, you have shown your incompetence and you’ll be removed

In a recent speech, Putin called the borders drawn after World Wars I and II illegitimate. He said the borders that were drawn by Lenin and by Stalin, partially as a result of the First and Second World War, are illegitimate and have to go. And if those borders have to go, well, then there is no obvious stopping point:

The question is, which empire does he think needs reconstituting? Is it the Soviet Union? Or is it Tsarist Russia? And if it’s the latter—and there are some indications in his speeches that he does mean the latter—then Poland and other countries are going to be justifiably worried.

Putin, now seems to be committing himself to total victory. If he can’t get it, he’ll be responsible and that makes a coup against him more likely.

Putin must come home with some kind of victory because otherwise he’s literally dead.

Are Russians really going to bomb Kyiv, a so-called “hero city of the Soviet Union,” into rubble like they did with Chechnya’s capital Grosny?  Are they willing to kill tens of thousands of people?

No one knows.

He wants to prevent more of these revolutions and prevent a democratic encirclement of countries around him, which could provide a safe haven for Russian dissidents who’d be dangerous to Putin’s political survival. Both of these goals overlap in the sense that he is seeking regime change, which is a dangerous game.

There’s also an interlocking commitment problem here:

Ukraine cannot promise not to join NATO in the long term, which Russia sees as a threat to its borders. At the same time, Russia can’t promise credibly not to ask for more if Ukraine made some concessions now, whether it be territorial concessions, regime change, or a promise not to join NATO.

So the question is.

If there’s a coup against Putin, what would the new Russian government insist on? They’re not necessarily all going to say, “Okay, sorry Ukraine, we made a mistake. Please excuse us.” And Ukrainians would not necessarily accept that anyway. Most likely, Ukraine would strengthen its demands and want Crimea back, resulting in ongoing bloodshed, pulverizing of Ukrainian cities, coupled with insurgencies.

Russia will never have full control of Ukraine. The West—that is Western Democracies—cannot, in my opinion, accept a victorious Putin.

We should not forget those people who are fighting and the costs they are willing to shoulder. Many of them will die because of Putin’s folly.

We’re in a situation where either success or failure both present horrible, dangerous situations, we’d better be very careful and think very, very carefully about what we can do, and perhaps what we cannot do, and prepare accordingly. You don’t want to corner Putin with sanctions to the extent that he feels that he must gamble—all or nothing.

We now at the point that Putin is afraid domestic enemies might overthrow and kill him, and there’s little the West can do to address those fears. The only avenue worth exploring in peace negotiations might be true plebiscites, overseen by international observers.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE ALL KNOW THAT WAR IS ORGANIZED BARBARISM ON AN ENORMOUS SCALE.

12 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., THE ISRAELI- PALESTINIAN PROBLEM., The Ukraine., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, War Crimes., Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Seven-minute read) 

No matter how much you know — or think you know — about any War, there are always more horrible things lurking in the shadows.Nazi military parade

Cast your eyes over any recent conflict, and you’ll see a litany of generals, politicians, and nations that have gotten away with stuff so horrific it defies comprehension.

This post is not an attempt to justify crimes of warfare. It is a feeble attempt to highlight the double standards went it comes to defining them.

                                      —————–

Our best hope of curbing humankind’s peculiar talent for superfluous
violence and extravagant self-destruction lies in the ideal of humanitarianism.

What is a war crime? 

War crimes are often associated with atrocities committed on a scale that defies credulity. I.E the number of victims did not pass some arbitrary threshold. At the most basic level, war crimes are [objectionable] acts committed by combatants, either against other combatants or against noncombatants—that is, civilians—during wartime.

Mass murder and genocide—crimes against humanity and atrocities committed on a large scale—have become the hallmarks of war crimes.

The question is who or what decides which acts are war crimes.

In an eerie echo of our own time, defining war crimes is not so much the issue anymore.

It’s prosecuting them actually, administering justice that is the primary obstacle.

The ICC is the product of a strand of idealistic thinking about justice between waring states stretching back at least to the first world war.

                                  —————-

In world war two was it a crime to kill 60,000 to 80,000 people in Hiroshima and another 75,000 in Nagasaki or 100,000 people in one night during the firebombing of Tokyo, an event barely talked about today.

In the American war in Vietnam, was it a crime to shower 45 million liters of the herbicide Agent Orange? In the process, it doomed up to 4.8 million Vietnamese residents.

Ask someone today to list war crimes of recent history and he or she may think of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or genocide in Rwanda, the Afghan war, the Syrian War, the Yemeni War, the Iraq war, the list is endless.

The overall theme is hard to miss but there is a vast gulf separating our indifference to war crimes. 

A few months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (hereinafter referred to as “9/11”), the Bush Administration decided that the Geneva Conventions did not protect members of Al Qaeda.

The president (George W. Bush) thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America’s reach, beyond America’s laws, and can subject American civilians and military to arbitrary standards of justice.

Another example is that there are clear parallels between Russian and Israeli violations of international law, including the committing of war crimes by Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

There are no sanctions against Israel that have so far desisted from joining nations including the US, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Japan in the imposition of an “unprecedented” number of sanctions on Russia, Belarus, and the two breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the wake of the invasion. 

According to Israel’s controversial Law of Return, “Jews, their children, grandchildren and spouses” are all eligible to visit Israel and claim Israeli citizenship. 

However, millions of Palestinian refugees are unable to return to the homes they and their forebears were expelled from in Israel and the occupied West Bank in 1948 and 1967.

Israel has granted citizenship to Russian mining oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, a figure linked to President Vladimir Putin and known to be one of the world’s richest men.

Last year, the two countries said the ICC should drop an investigation of Israel in part on the grounds that Palestine is not a sovereign country, although it is recognized as a state by the UN.

Netanyahu has accused the ICC of “pure anti-Semitism” for investigating attacks and has said Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, however, it does not have to. 

Whatever the answer, it seems unlikely that President Bush or Benjamin Netanyahu, will ever be tried for war crimes but the question of whether they actually committed war crimes remains.

                                         ——————

Neither the US nor Russia nor China nor Ukraine are members of the ICC. 

If justice in general moves slowly, international justice barely moves at all.

Investigations at the ICC take many years. Only a handful of convictions have ever been won and by the time the Barbarian is locked up there is nationwide amnesia.

Court proceedings can be brought in one of two ways:
 
Either a national government or the UN Security Council can refer cases for investigation. Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has veto power over council actions.
 

In all likelihood, there will never be a trial for either President Bush or Putin not to mention Benjamin Netanyahu,. 

Why?

I think it has a lot to do just with the power, the authority, of well-heeled countries, powerful countries, to shield their political and military members from prosecution by bodies like the ICC. 

Even if we were able to bring War Criminals to trial we just don’t have a true international police force that would arrest the offenders. 

                                   —————————

War is a place where young people who don’t know each other and don’t hate each other, kill each other, by the decision of older rulers who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other. 

It’s a world in which if you have the power you also have the power not to be held accountable for your power.

image003.jpg
Where are we with the Russian Ukraine war?
 
Could Russian leaders be brought to justice under international law?
 
Yes.  Because they fall under the overarching crime of aggression, all uses of armed force by Russia on Ukrainian territory can be viewed as illegal.
 
But that doesn’t mean the country pointing the finger has always been in the right itself.
 
Are countries supplying arms prolonging the war? Yes  
 
The national interest is for this war to end. If we wish to stop war crimes then we need to stop the war. Prolonging it will only see more of the same.
 
We should not be blackmailed and guilt-tripped into feeding more weapons into the meat grinder. How about, just for once, we put our own interests first?                                            
 
On the other hand, understanding the twin meanings of ‘humanity’ means something universal and immensely important”. Recognising its worth is “the least we owe the dead.
 
Meanwhile, NATO is just itching to get further involved in the war. 

We live in a world in which making the wrong comment on social media can lead to people losing their jobs but where politicians and public officials, whose actions affect the lives of millions and whose failure can lead to deaths in the most unimaginable circumstances, can simply walk away and into their next lucrative assignment.

While our own media doubles down on warmongering. They seem not to care if further escalation will plunge all of Europe into economic hardship or risk wider conflict. For some reason, it’s news to Western pundits that war isn’t very nice.

In the end, this war is shining a light on just how useless our United Nations is and dark skin automatically made you less than human.

There was a day that the UN could muster Blue helmets to intervene in conflicts. Now, all it can do is pass worthless resolutions.

                                    —————– 

When it comes to war crimes, Ukraine’s hands are also blooded.

What’s bizarre about this is that these countries that are supplying millions in arms are the same people courting Ukrainian membership of the EU, as though Ukraine was some kind of liberal democracy.

As with all wars, they end with denials of involvement in killing the innocent which are called collateral damage or a mistake of identification by a rogue drone, or ballistic rocket.     

The issue of reparations doubtless will be raised in negotiations to resolve the conflict and as an international condition for resuming any normal relationship with Russia. If the sanctions are eventually lifted in stages, it could prove effective to include conditions requiring the surrender of indicted fugitives.

Perhaps if the United Nations were to tell Mr. Putin that it is going to place a few thousand Blue Helmets between the present front lines Russia would think twice about any further advancement. 

( It is however due to the presence of Nato on the Russian borders too late. As they would be labeled Nato, not UN) 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE. TOLD YOU SO: WITH NO SOLOUTION TO THE RUSSIAN/UKRAINE WAR WE ARE HEADING FOR A MASSIVE RECESSION

26 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., The Ukraine.

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

Severe sanctions on Russia with the rectitude of the Pandemic are now creating a deep recession, resulting in an economic downfall that will be felt by people around the world.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has so far driven energy higher but the knock-on effects are yet to be seen. 

If Vladimir Putin retaliates to wester sanctions by cutting off Russian supplies of Oil /Gas the result will not be just a recession but civil unrest.

                             —————–

Of course, one would be a fool to predict what happens in a war. 

Beyond the military cost and the Human costs, this war is rapidly

turning into a quagmire not just for Russians but for all of us.  

It will not just be pushing millions into poverty and threatening

a deep recession as it evolves into a proxy war with which to

attack Russia and through it China. 

We have seen nothing yet.

                            ——————

When it comes to inflation the war’s international economic effect is starting to show in the numbers. 

If the cost of energy and food is pushed up by dwindling supplies caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict we will see inflation go well beyond 10%.  

Both countries, Russia or Ukraine,  were once dubbed “the breadbasket of Europe”, exporting about a quarter of the world’s wheat and half of its sunflower products, like seeds and oil. 

For example, in the UK there are about 2.2 million homeowners with mortgages linked to the Bank of England’s base rate would see repayments go up, putting further pressure on household budgets that are already being squeezed by the cost of living.

Russian stocks crashed by as much as 45% in the wake of the Ukraine invasion with trading subsequently suspended, with banks and oil companies among the worst affected. It also led to steep falls on stock markets elsewhere around the world: in Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 index has fallen over 6% since Russia crossed into Ukraine while Germany’s Dax index is nearly 10% lower.

Everyday goods – which may seem far removed from the conflict – but Russia is a leading commodities exporter.

Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of metals used in everything from aluminum cans to copper wires, to car components, such as nickel, which is used in lithium-ion batteries, and palladium, which is used in catalytic converters.

What we lack is a government with vision, courage, a sense of urgency, and basic competence coupled with an understanding that the world has changed.

With truth has been rejected by most of the

world’s population well before the shooting wars

started.  It is difficult to discern what the

planned end state of this war is.

However, as we all know the truth is the first casualty of wars so it’s a good time to start really learning how to watch what is going on. 

Here are some raw facts.

Partitioning a state causes all sorts of problems. This is how Ukraine and Northern Ireland were created in the first place – people meddling with the borders of territories.

Russia would need 800,000 troops — almost equal to its entire active-duty military — to control Ukraine long-term in the face of the armed opposition.

The slow advance of Russian troops in Ukraine shows that NATO’s fearmongering about some huge Siberian tiger force is fake; Putin commands only a paper tiger. Ukraine doesn’t need a NATO and neither do bigger states like Germany, France, Italy, or the UK.

The Russian army still has far superior firepower to the Ukrainian army. This superiority means that, despite some localized Ukrainian counter-offensives, it retains the initiative.

Faced with the hostility of the Ukrainian population united by this invasion, the Russian army will have difficulty maintaining control of the conquered territories. A protracted guerrilla war would ensue. 

In a nutshell, the confrontations would continue for many more long months, even years.

Russia will not just let what’s left of Ukraine go its merry way to become another problem in a decade or so.

Something will be formed and the Russians will mostly go home but NATO will not give up on stirring the pot. They may even fold what is left into NATO and then it will really be game on.

So, we have a new war to watch.

For some, it is just a weird kind of entertainment. For others, it is a good way to refine our thinking skills and our understanding of the world. We learn how to work through misinformation and build a clear picture of what is really going on.

Where is this going to stop? 

There is always a need for political courage to create space for peace and leave room for a political settlement. It takes two hands to clap.’ whatever the circumstances.

Ukraine is now engaged in a direct conflict with Russia. As a result, the model must be Ukrainian. In the event of an agreement based on these principles, the Kremlin would undoubtedly struggle to present as a “victory” a situation that, in fact, would be more “locked-in” than the one that existed before the invasion began.

Part of the problem is that Ukraine was not a neutral country when Russia first invaded it. The country formally abandoned its neutral status in late 2014. 

Neutrality is not a neutral concept but a complex political one, with major implications for countries’ international and domestic policies and development.

Relations between the EU and Nato the West, especially those countries that have acted in supplying weapons to Ukraine or implementing sanctions, are very unlikely to return to the state they were in before this conflict but Ukraine is just not the wake-up call to nations that new order is emerging.

So the real question, as civilians continue to be killed throughout Ukraine and negotiators try to hammer out a compromise, is this:

What arrangement would preserve actual independence for Ukraine, while still being acceptable to the Kremlin?

The war going on in Ukraine right now is about using Ukraine as a buffer to all the problems of sovereignty in a world that is going to see more conflict as Climate change forces people to move. 

How best to respond to a Russian invasion that threatens fundamental principles of sovereignty and respect for international borders that had, in theory at least, served as the foundation of European peace and security since the end of the Second World War.

Putin declared at the end of his Feb. 23 address : 

“Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history. We are ready for any development of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.”

While stopping short of threatening the use of nuclear weapons, Putin’s comments left no doubt that any intervention by NATO as an organization, or individual NATO members, in Ukraine would result in war with Russia.

NATO is playing a risky game, however, by continuing to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine that originate from and are shipped through NATO members’ territory.

While the threat of NATO overreach in providing air support to the Ukrainian government exists, the greatest potential for a NATO-Russian clash in Ukraine rests in the ongoing flow of refugees from Ukraine into neighboring territories.

If Russia begins its long-anticipated assault on Kyiv or otherwise engages in activities that dramatically alter the situation in the rest of Ukraine, it is anticipated that millions more Ukrainians will be seeking refugee status, creating the real potential for one of the greatest humanitarian emergencies since the end of the Second World War.

If the war in Ukraine continues unabated at a level equaling or exceeding its current scope and scale, it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that there will be a refugee-induced crisis that will require some form of humanitarian intervention.

Perhaps it is time for NATO and EU diplomats to act in a proactive fashion, reaching out to their Russian counterparts in an effort to anticipate both the problem and the solution, in a manner that does not create the conditions for inadvertent military conflict.

What is going on in Ukraine is tragic.

Ukraine has always been between a rock and a hard place with its history of being torn between East and West will not be easy to overcome.

However, the most positive outlook for a unified and prosperous Ukraine involves moving beyond this false and outdated dichotomy.

No nation of any standing will accept the presence of inimical ..interests surrounding its geographical borders.

There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way.

Is it time European nations and the USA gave serious thought to the need for the objectives of NATO?

I’m not sure NATO was ever solely a defensive force; it was equally a tool for US domination of Europe. 

We are left with the Question.

Why do wars occur and recur, especially in cases when the decisions involved are made by careful and rational actors?

There are many answers to this question.

For my part, they arise from an agency problem either on the part of the current ruler or the leader of the attack. There must exist incentives for conflict and some barriers to the ability to reach an enforceable bargain.

To fully understand decisions to go to war, such decisions cannot be divorced from the broader endogenous armament environment in which they reside.,

A peace agreement only becomes attainable after the balance of power has shifted so that it becomes in both sides’ interest to agree to peace.

This can take a long time. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

http://thesaker.is/how-russia-will-counterpunch-the-u-s-eu-declaration-of-war/

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. PEACE IS ” PERPETUAL WAR “

12 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in Remove term: RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU., The Ukraine., Uncategorized

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(Eight-minute read) 

Peace is “perpetual war.”       “Global” is imperial.

In today’s world, it is impossible to find a phenomenon that harms people more than war.While Trump Fiddles, Putin Steps Up the War in Ukraine

By now in our history, we all know that any war is to blame for people being killed.

It is not only military deaths but every living individual so you might be well asking why do we now have another war breaking out in Ukraine?

We all know that there are so many reasons for starting these wars that no appeal and no desire for peace will ever be heard if the authorities want so. Sometimes it simply is inevitable.

(This post is not to justify the out brake, rather try and understand why it is occurring in the first place.) 

It’s not just that Putin has become a  “farce with fangs.” in reclaiming Crimea. More than 90 percent of the population of Crimea voted to return the territory to Russia.

The conflict in Ukraine started with the refusal of ex-president Viktor Yanukovich to sign the agreement of Ukraine’s association with the European Union. Thousands of people, shocked by his decision, went to the streets to show their willingness to become part of Europe and live a happier and wealthier life.

Most of us have no knowledge about Ukraine and it’s not possible to explain its history in this post.

However, most of us are still not quite sure what Ukraine was or is. 

“Ukraine was a little bit like Ireland used to be within the United Kingdom” It was a subordinate part of a greater whole, of a greater empire.

“During the revolution that ushered in the Soviet Union, Ukraine fought for independence. It lost, and in 1922 was subsumed inside the communist state.

This was followed by Stalin creating  “The Holodomor an artificial famine,” to crush its people its language and culture. Just like the Irish Potato Famine known as the Great Hunger, which began in 1845 that saw millions of Irish either starve to death or immigrate. Stalin between 1932 and 1933, starved some four million Ukrainians to death.

The significance of the Potato Famine (or, in the Irish language, An Gorta Mor) in Irish history, and its contribution to the Irish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, is beyond doubt still to this day. 

“The attempt to eliminate Ukrainian-ness and the sense of it, of a separate identity and the sense of nationhood, has really been a Russian policy since the 19th century, but its sense of nationhood was growing stronger.

And now this disaster has befallen them and this feeling that they may be dragged back into some horrific Stalin-era or Czarist-era nightmare must be tormenting a lot of them.

                                  —————-

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes, and missiles as part of its Nato Enlargement Project. NATO has, in effect, militarily occupied eastern Europe.

In fact in the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato’s expansion is the biggest military build-up since the Second World War.

Imagine the response if these acts of provocation, or intimidation, were carried out on America’s borders.

“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers.”

The once hopeful concept of  “Russian reform” now means regression, even destruction. In Orwellian fashion, this has been inverted in the west to the “Russian threat”.

The Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”

                                  —————————-

As a consequence, we have witnessed Iraq dismembered with between 97,461 and 106,348 civilian deaths up to July 2010.

(The US has lost 4,487 service personnel. Half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five make up the Iraq deaths.) 

Syria flattened.  A decade of war in Syria has left more than 350,200 people dead.

Yemen. Almost a quarter of a million people have died in Yemen’s war. 

Afghanistan, so far the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; some 2,460 US military personnel and 51000 Taliban.  

Israel/Palestine.  At least 10,316 Palestinians and 1,287 Israelis.

Myanmar. The Rohingya genocide.  

“Behind each recorded death is a human being, born free and equal, in dignity and rights”.

Some sources say that the Soviet Union had over 20,000,000 casualties, in world war Two. 

                             _________________

” Perhaps the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature: its conviction that it represents a superior form of life.”

It is “so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable”.  

In the modern era, the employment of ethnic differences in western power and propaganda systems is now seen as essential.

Today’s grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective, and liberal is creating a world of inequalities.  

No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today.

“Austerity” is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.

It’s no wonder we have wars. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS. PUTIN IS NOWADAYS ISOLATED AND IN HIS OWN ‘STEROID WORLD’. IN HIS OWN MENTAL WORLD.

09 Wednesday Mar 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU, The Ukraine.

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(Three-minute read) 

Putin has been posing as Russia’s defender against an allegedly aggressive West and redeemer of ethnic Russians and brother Slavs everywhere since he came to power.

A heroic Ukrainian defense that actually repels Russian forces remains militarily unlikely,  but a Ukrainian victory would make all the above propaganda untenable.

He could not survive the defeat politically and knows it.

Therefore he won’t allow this scenario to happen.

Instead of withdrawing, he’ll follow one of three other paths.

                                             —————–

He could escalate the attack dramatically — but still with only conventional weapons. Basically, that means bombing Ukraine into submission. The loss of civilian and military lives would be horrendous, but Putin wouldn’t care. He would incorporate a seething and resentful Ukraine — either as a nominally independent puppet state or a subdivision of Greater Russia — and maybe add Belarus for good measure.

His empire would become a permanent pariah in the international community.

The world would have a new Iron Curtain.

Putin will therefore at least consider another — literally nuclear — option.

It’s the one he’s already hinted at.

Claiming that NATO and the EU are cornering him by supporting Ukraine with weapons and other wherewithal, he could launch one or more “limited” nuclear strikes with so-called tactical (here meaning low-yield) warheads.

Ukraine, like Japan in 1945, would have no choice but to surrender.

So what can be hope for?  

A homegrown Russian revolution would be by far the best outcome.

The new regime in Moscow could blame the attack on Putin alone, which happens to be true. It could therefore withdraw without looking weak. The international community could welcome Russia back with open arms. The world, including Russia, would become a better place.

China could flex its economic mussel.   

At the United Nations this week, 141 countries voted to deplore Putin’s aggression. China could have joined the four rogues (Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria) who voted with Russia against the resolution.

Instead, along with 34 other countries, it merely abstained.

As for ‘steroids.’ They are synthetic hormones, similar to testosterone, which have anabolic (bodybuilding) effects due to the fact they stimulate the growth of skeletal muscle. They also have androgenic (male) effects which enhance typical male characteristics. When you see a male bodybuilder, many will have been using steroids to create this appearance.

PERHAPS THIS IS WHY PUTIN HAS LOST THE PLOT. 

In the long term, anabolic steroids affect the central nervous system of the human brain, directly on neurotransmitter systems.

After all, the best way to deal with a cornered rat is usually to let it escape before it does more harm.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THERE IS EVERY REASON TO BELIVE THAT A LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR WOULD’N REMAIN LIMITED.

05 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in Ukraine/ Russia., Unanswered Questions., War

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( TWO MINUTE READ) 

UKRAINE AT THE MOMENT IS A CONVENTIONAL BATTLEFIELD CONFLICT AND WE MUST HOPE THAT IT REMAINS SO. 

There’s a lot of talk and coverage by the media about the rationality of actions when discussing nuclear deterrence. They are throwing the word nuclear around without any real understanding of what they are advocating in an all-out nuclear war.

It would extend well beyond the warring nations, change the climate, jeopardize billions of people in a nuclear winter.

Even a modest nuclear exchange let’s say a few hundred warheads would produce huge quantities of ozone-consuming chemicals creating an ice age.

As everything would lie in ruin there would be no governmental structures that could function in such a postwar climate.

There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war as a realistic possibility.

                                       ___________________

Irresponsible media is the last thing anyone needs at the moment.

Unfortunately, it can’t resist, (somewhat understandable) turning the Para Olympics into a political platform, one of the last world forms representing world Peace. 

Let us understand that advocating the use of a non-strategic nuclear weapon whether it is Nato or Russia, threatens humanity’s very existence. (A Soviet SS-18 missile has eight 1- megaton warheads.) They make up a tiny fraction of strategic nuclear weapons in the Russian arsenal. Hiroshima mushroom cloud after the first atomic bomb was dropped by a US Air Force B-29

HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI FALLOUT IS ONE WEAPON EFFECT WITH WHICH WE HAVE EXPERIENCED AND IT WAS ONLY AN ATOMIC BOMB.  

IF NATO WERE TO LAUNCH LOW-YIELD TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SIGNAL RUSSIA THAT IT HAS CROSSED A LINE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DE-ESCALATE THE SITUATION – THE CONSEQUENCES ARE UNIMAGINABLE.   

Radioactive fallout is unique to nuclear weapons. 

There is a near-universal agreement on the need to avoid a nuclear war.

                                        ———————

Could the war-shocked survivors meet the challenge? 

This question is so big that it’s best left unanswered since only an all-out nuclear war could decide it definitively. 

It might bring an abrupt end to the war, it will for certain bring an abrupt end to all life. 

Therefore it is the duty of all media platforms to avoid speculation but to promote untarnished awareness of just what is a stake.    

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. DO YOU REMEMBER BREXIT?

03 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Brexit Remembered., The Ukraine.

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(Two-minute read) 


The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021.

With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, it is now endeavoring to break its ties to Russian dirty money, which no doubt influenced it to leave the EU in the first place. As more and more information became available, there is no longer a mystery as to why the UK left the only organization that was formed to promote peace in Europe.

Now pathetically following in the footsteps of a United European Union with its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the true cost of leaving is becoming more and more apparent. 

When this war is over as it will be, because all wars run out of steam the UK is not going to be at any Summit with Europe to sort out the mess that remains. 

Of course, god forbid that the Ukrainian/ Russian spreads and turned into a nuclear conflict the “right to be forgotten” is written into European Union laws.

This might be to do with Privacy on the Internet, but in England’s case ( which is still unable to accept war refugees), it won’t be forgotten for all the non-nuclar reasons.

Is it conceivable that Britain might one day rejoin the European bloc it has now left?

The conventional wisdom says no, negotiations with Brussels will be a permanent fixture. Keeping the light on for its eventual return might now seem hopelessly romantic. 

But I say there will be a gradual process whereby the most damaging effect on the EU with England rejoining will have to be removed piecemeal before it is accepted back into the European Union. 

                                      ———————- 

It is estimated that Britain’s trade volume has been pushed down by more than 10 percent compared with what it would have been if it had remained in the EU but just wait till the Russian energy tap is turned off.

Then there may be some questions over the UK’s economic eligibility, especially if it had different level playing field rules to the EU.

Under Article 49, any country applying to become an EU member state must meet the following criteria:

  • Be a European state
  • Respect and commit to promoting Article 2 values – including human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, human rights (specifically minority rights), pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality.
  • Have its application unanimously approved by the Council of the EU.
  • Have its application approved by a majority vote of the European Parliament.

The UK would also need to secure the support of all member states to open and conclude accession talks. Considering the UK’s historical reluctance to integrate with the EU fully, this may be a concern to the bloc.

The UK would also need to secure the support of MEPs.

Any country dissatisfied with the prospect of the UK as a member state could veto membership, and there will be many.

With all of the world’s answers seemingly at the touch of the keyboard, people have the ability to search and find information with ease.

Let’s hear your comments.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS; WHY DO WARS OCCUR AND RECUR?

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Russia / Ukraine ., The Ukraine., Wars

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( Seven-minute read) 

We are incapable of living in peace with each other as there will always be incentives for conflict. 

Wars are inevitable because of the disposition of man and if we are unsuccessful in tackling climate change we will be seeing lots more of them so the answer to this question is that wars will be inevitable.

The plagues of wars these days seem more elusive than a cure for Covid/Climate change…No end to the carnage seems to be in sight. A lucrative arms trade ensures that the world’s armies​—and guerrillas—​will continue to be grimly effective.

More localized for the moment and ironically, this wholesale butchery is occurring during an age that has seen unparalleled efforts to outlaw war as a way of resolving disputes between nations.

The machine gun is no respecter of the fittest or boundaries, with the bomb annihilating the strong along with the weak.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf,  “Mankind has grown great in an eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish. . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker.”

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato said that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Is his bleak assessment a bitter truth we must learn to accept?

If war were inevitable, there would be little point in trying to end it.

War is not something created by the heat of passion. It takes years of preparation and indoctrination, weapons production, and training.

This is why we must use more effective and less destructive tools to resolve conflicts and to achieve security. Militarism has made us less safe and continues to do so.

War long predates Capitalism/ Communism.  War in human history up to this point has not correlated with population density or resource scarcity.

The idea that climate change and the resulting catastrophes will inevitably generate wars could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The looming climate crisis is a good reason for us to outgrow our culture of war.

 Hunger in the world must be abolished, inequality must be irritated and profit for profit sake   

Why?

Because weapons must be the arbiters of so many disputes.    

There is an interrelation between different factors that lead to war? 

All wars have some plausible situations in the eyes of the decision-makers such that the anticipated gains from a war in terms of resources, power, glory, territory, and so forth exceed the expected costs of conflict, including expected damages to property and life.

Thus, for war to occur with rational actors, at least one of the sides involved has to expect that the gains from the conflict will outweigh the costs incurred.

There has to be a failure in bargaining so that for some reason there is an inability to reach a mutually advantageous and enforceable agreement.

A lack of enforceable agreements is often one of the main ingredients leading to protracted wars. 

Being faced by an armed rational or irrational foe leads a rational country to arm to some level. In turn, this now means that either a foe who is irrational or a foe who thinks that I might be irrational will be armed, even more, and this feedback continues to build.

So here we are after two world wars still unable to have any real understanding as to why we are witnessing the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine.

Now, Ukraine is the pawn.

America has bombed a sovereign country every day for the last twenty years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Yet that is never part of the story we tell ourselves.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have used NATO to surround Russia.

Despite assurances, NATO would not expand to include former Soviet bloc countries, we have done just that. We weaponized Ukraine, minimized diplomatic solutions such as the Minsk Protocol, played a role in the 2014 coup that ousted the government there, and installed a pro-Western one.

But it does not seem to prevent our pro-Western government, our news media, our own selves from repeating the war myth it now becoming our bedtime story, one that seeds a nightmare.

The West as the good guys and everyone else as evil. We have arrived at this point of peril in Eastern Europe because we have lost the ability to see the world through the eyes of another. 

It thus becomes impossible to comprehend the behavior of other nations, to understand their fears, their concerns. We know only our own created story, our own myth, we care only for our own concerns, and so are forever at war.

We become provocateurs rather than peacemakers.

Ukraine should not have to suffer invasion by Russia. And Russia should not have had its safety and security threatened by NATO expansion and weaponry.

A good portion of our overview of the causes of war is thus spent discussing a framework of different bargaining failures.

So how will this Russian/ Ukrainian war be ended?  

The same as all wars a tragedy, creating the ground for the next war.

We seem to be caught somewhere in an unplanned downward trajectory slipping lower and lower, circling around and around toward some kind of catastrophe that is as yet unvisualised and unseen.  

We are very close to passing some irreversibly turning point, after which we will not be able to go back.

Let’s see if maybe we can miss the huge disaster that now seems to be looming in our future. We need to turn our full attention to fixing our environment.

Are we truly incapable of resolving these concerns without slaughtering each other? Is our intellect that limited, our patience that short, our humanity so curdled that we must repeatedly reach for the sword? War is not genetically set in our bones, and these problems are not divinely created. We made them, and the myths surrounding them, and so we can unmake them.

We must believe this if we are to survive. 

This is a long hard battle to be won.  Let’s pick our own future.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

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